Peace and Global Studies

Peace and global studies (PAGS) majors explore strategies for constructing a just and peaceful world. The goal of the program is to develop your competencies in fields contributing toward social transformation and peace.

PAGS is a great choice for students who are activists interested in the work of justice and peace: nonviolent strategies, anti-racist work, anti-poverty work, community organizing, addressing climate change and engendering more expansive human rights.  The PAGS program draws from the disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, philosophy and politics to explore problems of systemic violence and how these can be addressed.  The PAGS major offers students concrete grounding and enriched conceptual frameworks for strategizing for social change to address the most pressing challenges of our time.

PAGS is a rigorous major, but the challenge is invigorating! Our students are known for their serious work ethic combined with their unmatched senses of humor.

PAGS students are also known as passionate campus activists. They’ve been involved in organizations such as the REInvestment Campaign to urge Earlham to divest from coal and petroleum extraction; and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, in support of Palestinian nonviolent resistance to occupation.

Graduate Icon
96%
of recent peace and global studies graduates were working or in graduate school within six months of graduation.
Popular Icon
Honors
The PAGS program graduated two Rhodes Scholars in three years (Hashem Abu Sham’a ’17 and Summia Tora ’19) and frequently graduates Watson fellows and Fulbright scholars.
Outcomes

Top job industries for peace and global studies majors include community and social services, education, political organizing and lobbying.

Developing active peacemakers

Peace and global studies seniors research and design public presentations on the topic of their choice. Recent topics have been: “Race and the Prison-Industrial Complex,” “Whose Bodies Matter? Drone Warfare and Surveillance” and “Is Social Media a Game-Changer for Progressive Social Movements?”

Perspective icon

Hands-on experience

Through internships and off-campus study, peace and global studies students apply what they have learned to particular sites under the guidance of experienced organizers and activists. The Earlham Center for Global and Career Education can help you search for available programs.

Learn more

Popular award icon

A multitude of resources

The Department of Peace and Global Studies, located in LBC room 322, provides support to students and faculty interested in learning more about activism. Applied minors like Peace Corps prep and Law and Social Justice as well as the Earlham Center for Social Justice offer additional ways to engage in peace and global studies initiatives.

Our faculty

Our faculty are dedicated to documenting and building the power of organized labor, examining obstacles to social change, theorizing and reconceptualizing democracy, and organizing for greater economic and racial justice and solidarity at the local level. Contact our director to learn more about the program.

Program details

As a peace and global studies graduate, you can work around the globe. Like other PAGS alumni, you can be affiliated with non-governmental organizations, human rights groups, political campaigns, environmental organizations, alternative media, religious organizations and international agencies.

PAGS graduates work throughout the world, as rights advocates, journalists, researchers, organizers, lawyers, nurses, doctors, midwives, architects, designers, teachers, and university professors.

As a liberal arts college, Earlham offers multiple disciplinary and interdisciplinary majors and minors in which you will cultivate deep and specific knowledge and experience. Equally important, the College expects you to develop broad, general skills and proficiencies across the curriculum.

As part of your general education, you will complete six credits in each academic division of the College: humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and visual and performing arts. In addition, you will meet requirements for first-year courses, analytical reasoning, perspectives on diversity and wellness.

Learn more about general education at Earlham.

To earn a Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Global Studies, you must complete all general education requirements in addition to completing six core courses, as well as a minimum of three courses in one of four areas of concentration.

  • Six required core courses
    • Two of the following five courses:
      • ECON 103 Introduction to Microeconomics
      • PAGS 111 Introduction to Comparative Politics and International Relations
      • PAGS 118 Inequalities, Power and Society
      • PAGS 215 Identities and Social Movements
      • PAGS 270 Diplomacy: Theory and Practice
    • PAGS 240 Global Dynamics and World Peace
    • PAGS 481 Internship
    • PAGS 486 Senior Research Methods
    • PAGS 488 Senior Capstone Experience
  • A minimum of three courses in one of four areas of concentration is required:
    • Religious pacifism
      • REL 330 Mass Incarceration and Moral Vision
      • PAGS 343 Conflict Resolution
      • REL 303 Human Rights in the Muslim World
      • REL 304 Judaism, the Other and State: Encounters in Modern Jewish Thought
      • REL 309 Prophetic Black Women
    • Law & justice
      • PAGS 302 Genealogies of Nationalism in the Muslim Mena
      • PAGS 303 Human Rights in the Muslim World
      • POLS 333 Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Middle East and North Africa
      • PAGS 343 Conflict Resolution
      • POLS 367 Non-Western Political Theory
      • POLS 369  Politics of Authoritarianism
      • PAGS 377 Politics and Global Inequality
    • Praxis
      • ECON 310 History of Economic Thought
      • PAGS 347 Marxism
      • PAGS 343 Conflict Resolution
      • PAGS 351 Workplace Justice: Readings in U.S. Labor History
      • PAGS 353 Latin America to 1825
      • PAGS 354 Latin America Since 1825
      • PAGS 374 Methods of Peacemaking
    • “Fourth generation” peace studies
      • ECON 310 History of Economic Thought
      • PAGS 330 Postcolonial Theory
      • PAGS 341 Contemporary Social Thought
      • PAGS 347 Marxism
      • PAGS 370 Philosophy of Social Science
      • PAGS 371 Theories of International Relations
      • PAGS 374 Methods of Peacemaking
      • HIST 410 Philosophy of History

 Note: Other courses not currently listed might also count as contributing to each concentration; consult directly with the director of PAGS

View a full list of PAGS courses and their descriptions.

Peace and global studies majors have interned around the globe, many under the guidance of experienced organizers and activists. Recently, students have interned at organizations like UNITE HERE, Win Without War, the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, the Green Party of Poland, LesQueers and World Relief Chicago.

Professors in the PAGS program and the Earlham Center for Global and Career Education can help you identify potential internship sites that match your interests.

Yes! There are multiple off-campus study programs that are a great fit for peace and global studies majors, including the border studies program in Tucson, Arizona and Tibetan Studies in northern India, among others.

Some PAGS majors also complete their internship requirement while on an off-campus study program.

If you are a passionate activist and organizer or interested in understanding systems and society so you are better able to enact change, this major may be for you. After graduating, PAGS majors work in nonprofits, political campaigns, government and law, media and many other industries.

Next steps

EARLHAM ALERT:
We continue to monitor the effects of an industrial fire 1.1 miles from campus.
EARLHAM ALERT:
We continue to monitor the effects of an industrial fire 1.1 miles from campus.